Every day, more than 110 Americans are killed with guns — and more than 200 more are shot or wounded.
Guns are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States.
And every week there's a new mass shooting in this country.
This problem is, heartbreakingly, uniquely American.
But this problem doesn't have to remain a problem forever. It's possible to create a change.
We've collected the best quotes about putting an end to gun violence once and for all. Our hope is that these words will help motivate you and others to create the change we need to see.
Change can only come with protests, phone calls to our elected officials, voting out politicians who won't take action, and a collective culture shift of people ready to get off the sidelines.
Read and share these quotes, get involved in ending gun violence, and create a better future for our country.
You might also like:
— The Best Quotes About Activism
— 19 Things You Can Do To Stop Gun Violence
— How to Stop School Shootings (Stats + Script)
— The Ultimate Guide on Contacting Your Elected Officials
Read and share these quotes about preventing gun violence in America —
Motivational Quotes On Gun Violence
“Don’t let anyone tell you that these bad things happen and then everyone goes back to “normal.” … You don’t have to be ‘everyone.’ Stay with the grief. Stay with the anger. Stay troubled by it all. Stay open-hearted to those who grieve. Stay tuned to those working for change.”
— Morgan Harper Nichols, artist
“We can choose to be hopeful, try and possibly fail or not be hopeful, give up and definitely fail.”
— David Hogg, cofounder and board member at March For Our Lives
“Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. But that’s unacceptable. As others have observed, talking about how to stop a mass shooting in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t ‘too soon.’ It’s much too late.”
— Ezra Klein, co-founder of Vox & columnist for The New York Times
“I want more politicians to lose their jobs to do the right thing. Maybe your service is not about continually winning elections but winning the right one so you can make a brave once in a lifetime choice.”
— Taylor Schumann, author of When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough
“We are so sure we know what freedom is in America that we cannot imagine a world in which true freedom might come after sacrifice of personal rights. Freedom is sending your kids to school with confidence that they will come home at the end of the day.”
— Taylor Schumann, author of When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough
“I don’t have a lot of words today, except to say that there is a concerted effort right now to convince you that “nothing can be done.” It is designed to make you give in to the exhaustion of this moment. Don’t believe it. It’s a lie. We have power if we mobilize it.”
— Sherrilyn Ifill, civil rights lawyer
“We can decide we’re no longer willing to accept the violence. We can turn our pain into action. What you decide to do today can save a life — maybe your child's, maybe your own.”
— Jennifer Rosen Heinz, writer, activist, and founder of Outside Voice — in an article for Parents
“Gun violence feels too big, too powerful to stop. But it’s not too big for you to take some real, meaningful actions. You control what you decide you can live with, and what you can't. You can choose whether you do something, or do nothing. You are not powerless.”
— Jennifer Rosen Heinz, writer, activist, and founder of Outside Voice — in an article for Parents
“I want to live in a country where my presence is not seen by some as an existential threat. But this feels like a fantasy. I want to walk past the school where my son will attend kindergarten next year and see a place that will keep him safe. But this is impossible. We live in a country that has failed us. Where legislation is written — and erased — by the gun lobby. Where manipulations and distortions of Second Amendment rights prevent politicians from enacting any semblance of sensible laws that would at least attempt to prevent this. Where claims about what our Founders wanted supersede the slaughter we see right in front of us. Where the cocktail of easily accessible guns and the normalizing of extremist views makes nowhere feel safe. There is no other country in the world where this happens. And the fact that it does happen, and happens with such frequency, is reflective of a choice that has been made. But just because a choice has been made doesn’t mean that different choices aren’t possible. Different choices are possible.”
— Clint Smith, in The Atlantic
“I don’t ever want you to be satisfied with incremental progress, but I want you to demand it.”
— Senator Chris Murphy
“Let this radicalize you, and not lead you to despair.”
— Mariame Kaba, founder of Project NIA
“As a nun, I’m expected to offer thoughts and prayers, and indeed I do. But that’s not enough. We must rise up and take action together to stop this violence. This can’t keep happening.”
— Sister Helen Prejean, Catholic nun & death penalty abolitionist
Famous Quotes About Stopping Gun Violence
“It takes a monster to kill children. But to watch monsters kill children again and again and do nothing isn’t just insanity — it’s inhumanity.”
— Amanda Gorman
“Why is it that giving guns is so easy, but giving books is so hard?”
— Malala Yousafzai
“Hopelessness is not hard. Hopelessness is a resignation – a luxury folks might have if their children were not being sacrificed on the altar of profits and power. Hopelessness is not the way of people who do hard things. Hope can do hard things.”
— Glennon Doyle
“Only in America can one be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-unmanned drone bombs, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-guns, pro-torture, pro-land mines, and still call yourself ‘pro-life.’”
— John Fugelsang
“Gun control? We need bullet control! I think if every bullet cost five thousand dollars, we wouldn’t have any innocent bystanders.”
— Chris Rock
“If guns don’t kill people, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?”
— Ozzy Osbourne
“This strife among ourselves wastes our energy and destroys our unity. My message to those of you involved in this battle of brother against brother is this — Take your guns, your knives… And throw them into the sea!”
— Nelson Mandela
“I do not accept that we cannot find a common sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic second amendment freedoms and the rights of law abiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis.”
— Barack Obama
Quotes From Shane Claiborne
“When the Second Amendment was written, guns fired 1 round a minute. Now they can fire over 100. Guns have evolved over the years. So should our gun laws.”
— Shane Claiborne
“There’s folks that say we don’t have a gun problem, we have a heart problem. We realize we’ve got both a gun problem and a heart problem. God heals hearts and people change laws and we need to think of it as both of those.”
— Shane Claiborne, to the LA Times
“Not many people get argued into thinking differently, but experiences and stories move us, especially when we have the humility to listen and view the world from a different lens, from someone else's eyes.”
— Shane Claiborne, Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence
“We need a new approach to reducing gun violence. Rather than demonizing gun owners, perhaps we should focus on cutting funds from the gun profiteers. Instead of concentrating on the issue of rights, maybe we should approach it as an issue of conscience.”
― Shane Claiborne, Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence
“Our fundamental starting point, with guns and everything else, is this: What policies help us live well together? What's best for the most? What's good for the common good? What policies are vital for humans to thrive? We are not just thinking individualistically but as ‘polis,’ as a people — less about ‘I’ and ‘me’ and more about ‘we’ and ‘us.’ There is something that unites us that is deeper and more profound than all the stuff that divides us. Something unites us across party lines and blows all the labels and categories out of the water: our shared humanity.”
― Shane Claiborne, Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence
Quotes From Shannon Watts
“If arming more people meant that we would be safer, we would be the safest country on earth.”
— Shannon Watts
“These extremists are afraid their guns will be taken away — we’re afraid our children will be taken away,”
— Shannon Watts, to Reuters
“We'll not be intimidated, we'll not back down.”
— Shannon Watts, to Reuters
“A mom fighting to protect her children was way more powerful than a gun lobbyist fighting to protect gun manufacturers’ profits.”
― Shannon Watts, Fight like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World
“If… you're part of the 50% of America who hasn't been impacted by gun violence, great. Wonderful. It is coming to your community. No one is going to get out of this unscathed. We all have a part to play in changing this dynamic.”
— Shannon Watts, on MSNBC
